Emotional burnout of social workers in Kazakhstan: legal analysis and current challenges

Abstract

This article examines emotional burnout among social workers in Kazakhstan as an occupational, legal, and institutional problem. The purpose of the study is to determine how the psychological manifestations of professional exhaustion can be reflected in labor, social, and organizational safeguards, and to justify the need for preventive legal mechanisms. The scientific and practical significance of the work lies in connecting burnout indicators with employer responsibility, supervision, workload regulation, and psycho-emotional safety standards. The methodology combines content analysis of academic literature, secondary empirical analysis, legal and regulatory analysis, comparative legal assessment, and case-based interpretation. The results show that emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, reduced professional effectiveness, secondary traumatization, and chronic occupational stress are not sufficiently recognized in the current legal framework of Kazakhstan. The study identifies gaps in labor and social regulation and proposes the Legal and Emotional Resilience Model (LERM), which integrates legal resilience, emotional resilience, organizational support, and socio-psychological safety. The value of the study is its interdisciplinary translation of psychological evidence into legal and institutional categories. Its practical significance lies in the possibility of using LERM for institutional audit, prevention programs, supervision protocols, and monitoring of burnout risks in social service organizations.

Keywords: emotional burnout, social workers, labor law, occupational safety, psycho-emotional health, supervision, legal resilience.